


Idem Discrimen - Identity Crisis

by Mini_Goat, Missalice1990



Series: Bobbsey Chronicles [3]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985), Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Switching, Tricksters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23769679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mini_Goat/pseuds/Mini_Goat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missalice1990/pseuds/Missalice1990
Summary: Jack and Angus try to play a trick but Sam isn’t so easily fooled and Jack may just have bitten off more Carter than he can handle
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Series: Bobbsey Chronicles [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727761
Comments: 12
Kudos: 39





	1. Opening Gambit

**Author's Note:**

> Jack and his cousin on his mom’s side, Mac, crazy idea specialist, try to trick Sam by pretending to both be Jack so he can keep his promise to help her clean up the house after Orlin when Jack injures himself horsing around, but Sam isn’t so easily fooled even if Mac cuts his hair and wears Jack’s clothes… plus they smell and kiss differently.

“I want to thank you again sir.” She said almost shyly to him. “And for believing me… and well, believing in me sir.”

“Think nothing of it Carter.” He smiled softly at her. “Are we ok?” It had just been a joke and she’d taken it well but sometimes you couldn’t tell with Sam. He’d shown up at her house before they were scheduled to be on base in case she wanted to punch him or something.

“Jack.” She said softly. “I meant what I said the other day.”

“Ah… about what? Exactly.” He gave her a perplexed look.

“That I knew it wasn’t you for sure when Angus kissed me.”

“Because I wouldn’t have kissed you.”

“No.”

“Well then what Carter beca—mph” He’d have finished but Sam’s lips were now firmly planted on his without any warning whatsoever and utterly against any and all reason his hands had come up to her waist and pulled her in so he could deepen the kiss. Oh, he was lost and going to perdition if he didn’t change his ways but what a way to go. “Samantha…” He growled. “You’re playing with fire. I don’t have any defenses against you.” He told her as he savored the taste of the skin over the pulse in her neck.

“Good.” She told him and tugging at his shirt pulled him down the hall to her bedroom.


	2. Three Days Ago

“Wadayah mean it would be funny?” Jack asked the other man who looked remarkably like him.

“Just hear me out. I’m due for a haircut anyway… We’re about the same size. She’d never notice.”

Jack was sitting on his couch, a bag of ice on his knee. Mac had stopped in Colorado on his way back from wherever it was Jack’s younger cousin went these days. “I see at least two problems with your bright idea, Bub.” He said, calling Mac by his childhood nickname.

“Name ‘em.” Mac said. with a wave of his hand to continue while he sat back and drank one of the Diet Cokes Jack seemed to keep in his fridge in spite of not drinking Diet Coke himself.

“First, if work calls the jig is up.”

“Ok, that’s a fair point. What else have yah got?”

“Second… your grammar is atrocious by the way… Sam knows me too well. She’s going to know something is up.”

Mac ignored the jab at his lackadaisical West coast vernacular. “If I show up in your clothes with your haircut, she’s not going to notice my hair isn’t quite as grey yet as long as I keep my head down and bark the things I say instead of being my normal sweet self.” He said with a grin.

“I do not bark.” Jack said.

“Sometimes you yelp.”

“Bub, if I wasn’t nursing this knee I’d pound you into the dirt like you deserve.” Jack told his cousin.

“You haven’t been able to beat me up in years.” Mac taunted him.

Jack ignored the taunt. “What I don’t get is why.” Jack told him.

“Because you already promised her you would and you’re sweet on her.”

“What is this… the fifth grade?” Jack groused.

“At the rate things are going with you two, I’ll be a grandfather by the time you get married.” Mac said. Laughter in his eyes.

“Sam and I aren’t getting marred.”

“And I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

“Bub, we can’t. It’s against regulations.”

Mac waved a hand dismissively. “Regulations. Pfht… Who cares. She loves you. You love her. Retire Jack. You did it before.” Mac implored him.

“Damned stuffed shirts in the puzzle box won’t let me Bub. I tried.”

Mac frowned at the pain he heard in his cousin’s voice. Perhaps he had at that. “All right. Hang in there. She’s not the kind of girl to have a change of heart.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“A-yauh, it is. Say, have you got any snacks to wash down this Coke?” Mac asked him.

Jack finally chuckled. That was the one thing they had in common besides hockey. They thought with their stomachs like a pair of ravenous wookiees. “Should be some chips and beef jerky on top of the fridge. I’m gonna go take a shower.”

“Sure thing.” Mac said saluting Jack with his soda and heading for the kitchen for the elusive fried potato.


	3. The next morning

‘Jack’ showed up at Sam’s bright and early as Jack had told her he would.

“Good morning sir.” She said brightly, greeting him in shorts and a tank top that made Mac whistle appreciatively. “Sir?”

Mac cleared his throat. “Sorry. Where do you want to start?” He asked remembering to match his cousin’s infliction while he spoke.

“Well, the biggest mess is in the basement. They tore everything apart disassembling Orlin’s Gate.” She said with a frustrated sigh.

“Yah, they do that.” Mac said, blowing out a long breath. “All right. Ah.. you um… clean up your personal stuff, I’ll get going on the basement.”

Sam looked at him oddly. “All right sir.” She said, perplexed by his odd mood. Usually he’d prefer to work as a team. Was he uncomfortable alone here with her today? But if so, why? He had been here by himself before. But she shrugged. It had been a weird week and he’d believed in her when everyone else had thought she was losing it. Even if he had given her crap for being stressed out all the time and told her to get a hobby of some kind then giving her crap about the bag of yarn at the end of her couch that hadn’t been touched in months. And it was just like Jack O’Neill to notice that kind of detail.

Mac took a look around at the damage and sighed. They really had torn up her house. He swept up the mess on the floor first then got to work re-organizing the things that had been pulled off the shelves into some sort of sense. It probably wasn’t how she had it but at least it was cleaner and tidy again. Jack sure had himself dug in deep. Mac couldn’t say he blamed the guy. Sam was sweet, brilliant and kind and honestly just adorable. Jack was a lot smarter than he pretended to be. He could follow Sam’s technical explanations as well as Mac could and Mac could mostly follow her. Usually. Mac would lay a pretty heavy bet on right about now his cousin who was his senior by only a couple years was wishing like hell that they could switch jobs so he could court Sam unfettered by rules designed to protect the military not the people in it.

He put away some boxes with motorcycle parts on one shelf and next to it he placed a damaged transmission she must have pulled from the vintage Volvo in her driveway at some point. He had no idea how she drove that thing in Colorado winters.

Mac smiled when he found a box labeled photos with several books in it. One was clearly personal as it was filled with obviously private moments between his cousin and Sam. Oh yah. He knew that look on Jack’s face. Looked like she did too by that smile on hers. He gently put the book back into its box. It was sweet that she kept something like this relatively hidden in her house and he worried the CIA operatives that had gone through everything might have taken some stuff. He’d talk to one of his contacts and get back anything that was private for them both. His mom had always said it was handy to have friends in high places.

After he’d tidied up as much as he could, he headed upstairs to ask Sam where the dustpan was so he could toss the pile of dirt from the floor. Forgetting though that he was supposed to be Jack and not himself he bounded up the basement stairs. “Hey Sam! Where’s the dustpa—oof!” He ran headlong into Sam who was turning as she was coming down the hall, her arms full of laundry she’d apparently decided had been touched a bit too much by the spooks.

Laundry went flying and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her to keep them both from falling, leaving their faces inches from each other.

Impulsively Mac gave her a quick kiss. “Hey there.” He said as their lips parted.

Sam blushed bright red and extracted herself from his arms. “I ah, didn’t see you sir. Sorry about that.” Sam studiously ignored that her CO had kissed her and it felt… off.

“So about that dustpan, Carter?” Belatedly remembering Jack told him he rarely called her Sam and almost never called her Samantha unless she was very upset.

“Oh... oh… um… right.” She went back to the laundry room she’d come from and returned with a dustpan and sweep for him. Mac handed her some of the laundry he’d picked up in trade which she snatched away as the top couple things were bras and panties.

He grinned at her. Sam had _very_ feminine taste in undergarments. He bet Jack especially liked the midnight blue number with the mesh back and silk front.

Sam however frowned at him. Mac took the hint and headed back for the basement, Sam’s eyes on him the entire time.

Back in the basement Mac wondered if Sam had figured out something was up. He’d watched her with his cousin and she was _never_ this prickly. He polished off the dusting and returned upstairs to find her straightening the pictures on her mantle.

“What else have you got Carter?” He asked her, doing a better job this time of sounding like Jack. God she was pretty. Angus was a little jealous of his cousin at the moment. Mac had a lot of girlfriends but hadn’t been serious about any relationships in a long time. Honestly since Kate all those year ago. He’d just never found anyone who touched his heart in the same way since. And his mom had told him more than once you didn’t put strings on a woman you don’t intend to do right by.

“The kitchen still needs to be cleaned up. You could do that while I clean up my office.”

“Sure.” He said with a grin.

Sam tilted her head and looked at him suspiciously. Something was just… off. The kitchen was kind of a trap anyway. Jack knew where she kept all her kitchen things. His excellent memory aside, he simply spent enough time at her house to know where she kept things. That’s why the Orlin thing had been such a problem. While she and Jack weren’t technically dating there had been enough incidents to make her feel like the unspoken understanding she and Jack had was violated by Orlin’s courtship of her.

The thing was, they both accepted that the other might meet someone and didn’t hold the other to a situation that was static and therefore unsustainable in its nature. And Orlin had been sweet and admittedly adorable and very interested. He had a kind of Owen Wilson charm to him but while she’d found him attractive and sweet, she doubted it would have been more than a passing fling for her and if it wasn’t for him, she’d have eventually felt trapped, unable to extract herself from a man she cared about but didn’t love.

And Sam knew herself well enough to know she was easily manipulated by other people’s emotions. Ironically the one person she wished would do so wasn’t emotionally able to take advantage of her. He never put any clam on her regardless of how either of them felt.

And something was very off with that man today. First by avoiding her while they worked, then he’d kissed her in a way that just seemed... off. Somehow. She didn’t know how but… that wasn’t Jack. Sam was positive.

She went to her bedroom and grabbed her personal side arm first. When she got to the kitchen she came up silently behind him, something she could never achieve with her CO who could literally not only sense her but  _ sense  _ it was her. She clicked the safety off her piece and aimed at his head. “Who are you really?” She demanded.

‘Jack’ dropped a dish into the sink. “Woah! Hey!” he put up his hands. Jack, Sam reasoned, would never put his hands up or not try to disarm her. Whoever this was, he was not Jack O’Neill.

Sam stared him down. “Who. Are. You.” She snarled.

“Look… this isn’t what it looks like.”

“Really? Because it looks like there is a man in my house impersonating my CO.”

“Now Carter, why would anyone do that?” He pleaded.

A mirthless chuckle escaped Sam’s lips. “You of all people would know,  _ sir _ .” she told him very sarcastically.

Sam pulled her phone out and flipped it open in a single motion and hit number 2.

A handful of miles away Jack looked at his cell phone. “Fuck.” He muttered. “I’m not answering you.” But he did grab his keys and hobbled to his cousin’s Jeep. It was only a five minute ride to Carter’s house from his own.

“Where is your phone sir?”

“Ah… funny story about that. I must have left it in the truck.” Mac thought furiously of how to stall. Jack was probably on his way and all he had to do was not get shot by Jack’s crazy girlfriend during that time.

“I am quickly running out of patience, whoever you are. So do us both a favour and tell me who you really are, then I might shoot you someplace non-vital.”

“I gotta admit Sam, this is not a side of you I thought existed. I mean… I know obviously you had to have this side for work and all but I never thought I’d personally see it.”

“Oh you think you know me huh?” she started running the probabilities of which situation this might be. , “so why don’t you tell me, what you really are, another android? Another ancient who looked a bit too deeply and thought it would be okay to take on the face of my CO?”

“Huh?” Mac replied completely confused, what had happened since he was last here!?

But Mac was never one to give up on a joke so when Jack barged in and barked “Carter! Stand down.” Sam’s eyes never left Mac’s and rather than their normal wide intelligence they were narrowed with suspicion.

“Carter… listen to me carefully... he’s the fake me.” Mac told her.

“Bub,” Jack pointedly called his cousin by name before Carter took it into her head to just shoot him on principle. Not that he hadn’t earned it. “knock it off before she shoots your stupid ah.. butt.” Jack warned him.

“I’m the real Jack.” Angus insisted and waved his arms then possibly did the stupidest thing he’d done for a joke in a while. He went over to Jack who wore an identical black t-shirt and jeans and spun the both of them around a few times before triumphantly stopping with them switched. He then matched Jack scowl for scowl.

Sam sighed heavily and rolled her eyes, thanking god it was something as simple as Bub vs. Jack. She set down the gun and shook her head. “I can still tell you apart.”

“What? How?” Jack yelped.

“I can tell you apart even with my eyes closed and I’ll prove it.” Sam had by this point figured whatever nonsense Jack was up to with his cousin she’d soon figure it out. On his first visit no one could tell them apart, and working in the SGC, with in effect two Jack O’Neill’s walking around (for once not by some freak of nature) had led to some hilarity for a couple of weeks. Only Sam could tell them apart, and honestly she hadn’t seen quite how much they looked alike until, apparently had that haircut he was harping on about getting the last time he was here. She went over to the oven and pulled the towel off the bar and rolled it. “Both of you stay put.” She ordered them as she tied it over her eyes.

Jack and Mac looked at each other and shrugged.

She points randomly at one of them. “Say ‘aw, come on’.”

One of the Jack’s answers with a frustrated drawl.

“Now you say it.” She told the other, almost calling him sir.

“Aw come on.” He said in frustration, his voice more a yelp.

Sam nodded, satisfied that she’d been right. She walked up, blindfold still in place, leaned up and kissed one of the ‘Jack’s on the cheek. “It’s very nice to see you again, Mac. The haircut was almost enough.”

She turns and leans up “Which makes you sir, Jack O’Neill.” She says smiling and goes to kiss him the same way she had Mac but Jack, surprised that she knew them apart just by their voices opened his mouth to say so and Sam caught more than just the corner leading to him putting his hands on her elbows to steady her but neither broke the unexpected kiss.

Just as Jack would have drawn her in to deepen the kiss, Mac coughed pointedly.

Sam drew away, blushing a little as she pulled off the towel. “How’s your knee sir?”

“What? Oh… how did you know I hurt my knee?”

“Because you hate breaking promises to me and that was the only non-work conclusion I could come up with.”

“Ah.” He said thoughtfully.

Mac impulsively hugged her. “It’s nice seeing you again Sam. It’s been a while but Jack literally doesn’t shut up about you.”

She gave Jack an arch look.

“He’s worse than Daniel pestering me frankly.”

Sam giggled “Ok.” She said agreeably. Daniel did have a habit of giving Jack crap for his own entertainment.

“I’ll come by Monday to sort out anything this idiot didn’t know where it went.” Jack told Sam.

“You don’t have to do that sir. It’s fine.”

“I insist Carter.” He told her with a curious frown Sam couldn’t quite read.

Her brows furrowed. “That sounds an awful lot like you are leaving?”

“Sorry Sam, I have to get on a flight back to California and I left this jerk catching up on paperwork.” Mac said, thumbing Jack.

“Hammond is on my butt again.” Jack grumbled.

“Sir, if you would quit doing them by hand first it would go faster.”

“The SGC computers hate me Carter.” He whined. “Besides Hammond knows better than to give me another laptop.”

Mac looked at her curious.

“He threw it.”

Mac laughed. “On that note, I’ll see myself out, beautiful. Try to keep this loser out of trouble. I’m kind of attached to his old scrawny ass.”

“Scrawny?” Jack’s tone was feigned outrage.

“I will keep that in mind Mac.” She said reassuringly as she led him to the front door.

Jack followed in tow and put on his shoes reluctantly. He should have brought his paperwork with him, then they could have ordered take out and cuddled on the couch for a few hours. He really needed to be more strategic in the future about this stuff.

“Bye Sam!” Mac said waving affably as his Jeep pulled away.

“You’re not mad?”

“Should I be?”

Jack just frowned at her, unsure of where he stood right now.

“Go home, ice your knee before Janet throttles you for whatever you did to it this time, get your work done. I’ll see you in a couple days.” She told him.

Jack gave her a reluctant look before leaving.

Sam watched him go then shut her front door. “Oh boy.” She huffed out.


End file.
